Dirt Empire
by sarsaparillia
Summary: Two men, a car crash, a dead girl, and the aftermath. Life told in snippets, because that's all they can handle. — Sasuke/Kiba.
1. eulogy for a dying lady

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
><strong>dedication<strong>: les. always les. even when she divorces me _for no reason, jeez_.  
><strong>notes<strong>: possibly a two-shot? idk.

**title**: eulogy for a dying lady  
><strong>summary<strong>: Slow down, baby. Keep your eyes on the road. — Sasuke/Kiba.

—

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It was more like a club than anything else. Sasuke ground his teeth and kept his eyes to the floor, intent on anything but the fact that this was his oldest friend's bachelor party. The whole thing was pretty fucked up. The fact that Kiba was getting married was pretty fucked up. The fact that he was even allowing this was pretty fucked up.

It wasn't like they were in love, or anything.

That was cliché, and Sasuke was not a person for clichés.

(He should have learned his lesson the first time—for fucks sake, you don't fuck your friends. Especially your best friends. Because feelings get involved with best friends, whether you want them to, or not. It just got so _messy_, when there were friendships and feelings involved.)

The strobe light flared in time to the pounding beat, and Sasuke found himself in a room full of gyrating girls and sweat-slick skin, very nearly sick to his stomach. He still didn't know why he was here. He still didn't know what the fuck was supposed to be going on. He still didn't know anything. Fuck, he'd never known anything.

(Especially not this.)

He just knew that this was wrong and that there was nothing he could do about that.

"You look like shit," laughed a voice in his ear. Sasuke turned his head a fraction of an inch, just in time to see the play of purple-blue-white explode across Kiba's face. He looked distorted under the light, smeared and blurred in a way that Sasuke could not name. But his eyes flickered with the shine of alcohol, and Sasuke felt his fists clench involuntarily, uncontrollably. Fuck, he hated this. Fuck, he hated it all. He hated it so much he didn't even have the words to describe it. Kiba felt like home up against him, close and heady, murmured passion and bright lights. Sasuke would have grabbed him and drawn him into a dark corner to reassert his authority, but Kiba was getting married.

And Sasuke wasn't a cheater.

(It wasn't cheating because they were best friends—best friends—_best friends_—)

But still he stood there with Kiba's mouth pressed to his ear in drunken laughter. Sasuke had to wonder is anyone knew; if anyone suspected. Maybe Karin, but she was his sister and her loyalty had always been family first, everyone else after. Karin would back him, regardless, and Sasuke knew that.

There were things he wanted to say. So many things he wanted to say, but couldn't, because _Kiba was getting married_.

There would be no more shitty late-night coffee in his tiny, shitty kitchen on his tiny, shitty table. There would be no more taking off without word, no more conversation, no more friendship. No more shitty coffee.

Sasuke's hands close convulsively on Kiba's wrists, nails biting into flesh to leave marks. _Mine_, the marks said. _Mine. Always mine_.

Sasuke would have gouged his named into Kiba's skin if he could, because Kiba _belonged_ to him. _Him_. _Mine_.

Kiba raised an eyebrow.

"That hurts. What's your problem?" he asked.

Sasuke made a growling sound low in his throat, nails biting in deeper. He's always been possessive, and Kiba was no different; when Sasuke claimed something, he claimed it for _life_.

Except that Kiba was getting married.

It wouldn't stand.

"Come with me," Sasuke ordered. He dragged Kiba through waves of bodies moving in time to the beat, fighting against every urge he'd ever had to shove the other man into his car and make a break for it. But this wasn't the time to run; this was the time to forget that other people exist, because this was the last night—the _last_night ever—where they were both unattached.

It was dark along the wall, but the floor shivered with the pounding of a million decibels of bass and another million feet dancing, to go with it. As Sasuke shoved him against the grimy wall, tongue in his mouth, he could feel Kiba's fingers curling into his shirt. They grappled with each other and Sasuke bit down hard on Kiba's lip. He didn't have to be told that it would leave a bruise. He knew that and the pride swelled for a minute, hot and furious, because they'd always been violent with each other. Gentle had never been in their natures, and even now, it still wasn't.

Kiba pulled back, breathing hard. "Are you fucking shitting me?" he gasped, voice hoarse. "_Now_?"

Sasuke didn't say anything. Instead, his slanted his mouth along Kiba's and slid his hand across the suddenly evident bulge in Kiba's pants.

"_Now_," he muttered, as if to affirm something.

Kiba inhaled sharply and his head jerked back, clacking painfully against the wall. "_Mother of fuck_," he snarled from between his teeth, and Sasuke only smirked and pressed his face in to the crook of his neck. He bit down on the pulse-point hammering there and Sasuke knew, he _knew_that there was no one else in the world that could make Kiba's pulse race like that.

_Mine, mine, mine_, sang his most possessive parts and Sasuke crushed Kiba, hips grinding down because _you are mine, do you understand_?

"S'no wonder my girlfriend hates you," Kiba muttered.

Sasuke snarled, and buried one hand in Kiba's hair and in the other in his pants.

Girlfriend or no—_fiancée_ or no—some secrets weren't meant to be told.

_Mine_.

And then darkness—

—a cab outside, sliding in and shaking, shaking, shaking with Kiba's mouth sealed to his own and the lights, the lights across his face—

—shirt half-off with the driver screeching in the background, grinning through a haze of lust—

—flash of pain and the sweet tinkle of breaking glass, the _ding_ of the elevator—

—key card swiped with trembling fingers, unable to breathe—

—hitting the floor, screaming skin-against-skin like this was just entertainment but the want, the want and Sasuke reached—

—and then darkness.

/ / /

Sheets across the floor, over-turned table, a broken chair, and closed blinds. The feather-light circles Kiba drew on Sasuke's back mimicked the finger-bruises in the pre-dawn light. Neither moved. Neither felt the need to.

"Can't believe it's today," Kiba said.

The word _married_ hung between, unspoken. Kiba's lips formed the word, but Sasuke didn't want to hear him say it.

Sasuke grunted.

He didn't want to know. He didn't want to know because this was the last, last time—the last time to be able to physically hate him, to physically prove his ownership, to physically draw his own name across Kiba's body. It would be the last time Sasuke would be able to throw his best friend across a room and very nearly break his ribs but to clutch at the heat and the want—this would be the last.

Kiba tasted like tear-stains and could-have-beens, but Sasuke had always loved a good train-wreck.

Sasuke pushed off the bed, and went to find his clothes. A tuxedo for a wedding; dressed in black like mourning, he thought, and though he grinned to himself, it wasn't a happy thing. In the dark reflection of the window, it looked like a skull pulling a grimace. And evil thing that Sasuke knew not how to retract.

"Your shit's over here," Sasuke muttered. He indicated the carefully hung tuxedos, perfect and unwrinkled. They were the only things in the closet, and Sasuke pulled his out without great care.

It was not the first tuxedo he would wear, and it would certainly not be the last.

But god, did he hate it all.

He looked over at Kiba, sitting up now with bed head and caught half in a yawn and naked. Sasuke wondered if he smashed Kiba's face against the wall and broke his nose, would his fiancée still want him? Would she still love him?

Sasuke chuckled at the thought of it.

Kiba didn't really love anybody, he thought. Not really, anyway, because love for Kiba was the same as love for Sasuke. It was dangerous, the uncertain element; love meant giving everything and Sasuke knew that giving everything meant being vulnerable.

Neither of them was ever vulnerable. Not if they could help it.

"M'gonna take a shower," Kiba yawned.

Sasuke nodded at nothing in particular, and waited until the idiot was gone to bash his head against a wall. Or maybe just destroy everything, because the urge to grab Kiba and run had yet to settle.

Sasuke knew it likely wouldn't do to kidnap the groom on his wedding day.

He walked to the window, pressed his forehead against the glass, and closed his eyes.

He wished for rain.

/ / /

Just to be contrary, they stepped out of the hotel lobby into early-morning sunlight and perfect blue sky, fresh and sweet. Sasuke swung his keys around his finger. It was an old habit, left over from high school days when deadlines weren't really deadlines and nobody ever really got hurt.

(That was a lie, of course. Sasuke was just luckier than most. Or maybe unluckier, depending on how you looked at it.)

He slid into the driver's seat. The leather was faded and soft, worn-in, and Kiba flopped down in the passenger seat, rubbing furiously at his hair. Sasuke looked him over once, and said nothing.

There would never be anything to say again.

The doors clicked locked and Sasuke gunned the engine. On the way to the wedding hall dressed in black, the two men looked away from each other, unable to speak.

"You love her," Sasuke said, but it came out sounding like a question.

Kiba snorted. "No."

Sasuke stared at him out of the corner of his eye, his gaze quietly concentrated. He knew things about Kiba that no one else did, but sitting there in the car, his oldest friend looked like a different person, coloured sunshine-yellow happiness and carrying it like a burder.

There was no happiness in his face, and Sasuke hated that.

Sasuke thought about crashing them both into a ditch and watching everything go up in smoke. The college kid in side him wanted it—wanted to mar the happiness of the day because _Kiba was getting married_ and _he didn't love her_.

"No looking back," Sasuke said and pressed the gas.

"Slow down, baby," Kiba murmured in reply. "Keep your eyes on the road."

Sasuke absolutely hated him.

They drove in silence after that.

Sasuke's knuckles were white on the steering wheel as the road passed beneath them. The speakers were muted but singing, the whisper of an old loved song thrilling along his bones like_ this is forever or until one of us dies_, but there was nothing, nothing.

The exit to the church was coming.

He could miss it. He could. Maybe just drive forever, until they hit the coast, then head north or south or something. Somewhere. Anywhere. It was a split-second decision a decade in the making.

"Hey man, next turn-off."

"Hn," Sasuke said, flicking his signal.

It was a split-second decision a decade in the making ignored.

They walked up to the church and stood just behind the doors.

"Alright?" Sasuke asked.

Maybe he would always be asking. _Are you making the right decision? Are you sure you know what you're doing? Are you __**sure**_? Maybe he would always wonder. Sasuke clenched his jaw.

"Fuck off, man, you sound like you're worried or something," Kiba said. He tucked his hands in his pockets, looking unruffled and unconcerned. It was such a Kiba thing that Sasuke wanted to break him, rip, tear, destroy, control, _own_.

But he wouldn't.

Kiba pushed through the doors and headed up the aisle.

Half way there, he glanced over his shoulder and shot Sasuke a sad grin, the kind that said _goodbye_ without even really meaning to.

Sasuke's shoulder tensed, and the urge to grab his friend and run reared up again.

But he did nothing, and waited for the wedding march to begin.

—

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_fin_.  
><strong>notes2<strong>: this may actually be the most depressing thing i've ever written in my life. i know, i say that all the time, but… seriously. shit, son.  
><strong>notes3<strong>: please do not Favourite without leaving a review!


	2. disaster boy

**disclaimer**: disclaimed.  
><strong>dedication<strong>: les. for her birthday. let the angst begin.  
><strong>notes<strong>: _i cannot stress how sexy this pairing is, okay_.  
><strong>notes2<strong>: the timeline of this story is going to be strange. This one happened in college—they're both twenty.

**title**: disaster boy  
><strong>summary<strong>: Twenty years, sinking slowly. — Sasuke/Kiba.

—

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The fact was: this relationship was pretty fucked up.

Kiba opened his eyes to sunlight and the haze of a hangover. His head pounded. It was too bright.

He was going to be sick.

Kiba rolled over, trying not to retch.

And very nearly fell into Sasuke.

Kiba groaned.

He _hated_ mornings like this.

/ / /

"This is what, the fifth time?"

"Hn."

"What'd you do _this_ time?"

Sasuke shot him a dark glare. Kiba held his hands up in mock surrender, grinning like a manic with two cups of shitty instant coffee sitting on the table between them.

"This shit all you got?" Sasuke asked.

"We ain't even got Smirnoff left," Kiba snorted. "And that shit's undrinkable. We drank this place fuckin' dry."

It was nothing new. The two men had been friends since elementary (albeit unwillingly—Kiba hadn't wanted his elder sister dating Sasuke's jerk-off elder brother. Sasuke had wanted it even less), and high school had not been kind. College was even less so, but at least drinking copious amounts of alcohol as a coping mechanism was more socially acceptable.

(Black-out drunk was a Saturday night tradition. Didn't you know?)

So waking up hungover and half-naked was nothing special.

Kiba took a long drink of coffee. It was black as sludge but thin, weak. It was disgusting and he drank it only because it was something to pass the time. Sasuke would eventually relay the problem that had him drinking a fool of himself.

Sasuke opened his mouth.

So predictable. Kiba smirked.

"Karin's crazy," Sasuke said flatly.

Kiba raised an eyebrow. "Dude, she's dating Suigetsu. And she's related to _you_. No offense, but she's gotta have _some_ crazy in her."

This statement did not seem to please Sasuke.

Kiba didn't really care.

(Because honestly, what pleased Sasuke, really?)

"Watch your mouth."

"Yeah, yeah, _that's my sister you're talking about_ and all that crap. So whad'ya do to piss her off now?"

"Hn."

Kiba squinted at him, eyes dark and suspicious. Sasuke had always been a decent liar. His poker face was unmatched—a hundred dollars and a guitar lost at cards said rightfully so. But there seemed to be something else; Sasuke's face was not the perfect blankness that he maintained during any and all card games, but more like a bewildered, quiet blankness that spoke of absolute cluelessness.

"What, you didn't do shit?"

"No," said Sasuke, shaking his head slowly. "Nothing."

Which was weird.

Kiba had known Karin for literally almost as long as he'd known Sasuke. Karin was loud, roudy, and _violent_ on a good day—her consistent sluttiness had been a topic of much discussion when they were younger, to Sasuke's unending rage. And while she was a crazy bitch (she was dating _Suigetsu_; that had not put Sasuke in a good mood, either, Kiba remembered with a sense of humoured nostalgia), she was not irrational.

Sasuke must have done _something_.

Kiba took another long drink of the shitty coffee.

"Seen Kin recently?"

For his trouble, Kiba got a stink-eye. He laughed outright. "Christ, Sasuke. Karin _hates_ her."

"Yeah, well," said Sasuke, glaring at a burn-mark on the table. Kiba vaguely remembered something about candle-wax—there was no explaining what they did when they were drunk.

(Weird shit.)

The two men shrugged and sat back, drinking shitty coffee, comfortable in each other presence.

"You seeing whatshername, tonight?"

Kiba grinned like a dolt. "Yeah. Shino's got a thing. You should come."

Sasuke sent him a deadpan look, like _do I look like the sort of fucker to go to frat parties?_ And Kiba shrugged, because extending the offer was something that friends did, and Shino liked his parties loud—which on its own was weird shit, because Shino spent his time learning.

But music seemed to touch them all.

Kiba looked at Sasuke over the top of his mug, and quirked an eyebrow.

Sasuke quirked one in return.

"Seriously, bro. Come. We can get trashed again."

This was probably not helping his case, but one of Sasuke's few weaknesses was alcohol. He may have hated people, but alcohol—that was a different story entirely.

"Fuck you," said Sasuke.

And Kiba knew he had won.

He threw back his head and crowed delight. It was too loud for such a shitty morning, but it was something and hell, something was better than nothing.

"C'mon," Kiba grinned. "We got shit to do."

And they did.

They spent the afternoon loudly killing each other at HALO; enemies and aliens alike went down when they were teamed together, but when they were against each other, _shit got real_.

It was probably a metaphor for their entire friendship.

They were half-drunk and ridiculous by the time they stumbled onto the university campus nearly twelve hours later; Kiba with one arm around his laughing blonde girlfriend and the other around Sasuke's shoulders. Tomorrow didn't feel real; the future didn't exist and the only thing that mattered was jumping right in.

Kiba's girlfriend danced in the strobe and they got lost.

Sasuke found Kiba drunk and laughing after a keg stand.

"The fuck d'you think you're doing?" he asked over the pounding bass from somewhere far away.

"Drinking," Kiba grinned. "Here."

Sasuke didn't even know what it was—it tasted like stout and rum and it was disgusting so he chugged it just because he could. "Motherfu—"

"Such a pussy," Kiba snickered.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and cuffed the idiot over the head. He watched him stumble towards the lovely blonde dancer—Ino, always Ino; always had been, always would be. There was a quiet sickness in his stomach that he couldn't place.

He drank some more to placate it.

They might have partied all night for all either of them knew.

Sasuke found himself splayed out on the couch, surrounded by his stupid friends and the stupid music and the stupid light and—fuck.

"—I have to go home. I have a dance recital in the morning—"

Sasuke tipped his head and caught sight of his really stupid friend's girlfriend leaning over his really stupid friend's half-dead body and smiling (and no, he wasn't talking about Naruto; that idiot was curled around some tiny girl with dark hair and had been passed out for three hours. Kiba was his really stupid friend).

"'Kay, fuck, I'll drive you—" Kiba muttered, trying to get up.

He failed miserable, and Ino giggled. "Are you stupid? You can't even stand. Don't worry, Sakura's sober, she'll get me home—"

"You sure?"

"Of course, idiot," she said fondly. Bright blue eyes caught Sasuke's gaze, and a smile curved her pale cheek. "Take care of him, okay? I don't want him to die but I really have to go…"

And Sasuke nodded, because that was what he did; he took care of Kiba's stupid, drunk ass, no matter how stupid and drunk he himself was.

Ino smirked and reached over to pinch his cheek and Sasuke batted her away because he'd always hated that and Kiba reached for her to kiss her, sloppy and whiskey-breath. She giggled against his mouth because that's how Ino was—giggles and glitter and whisper-warmth, photograph-perfect in the strobe, a flash of rainbow light in a world of grey.

Kiba kissed her again, fingers curling in a streaming halo of gold. "Love you," he mumbled.

She smiled, gold and forever, and kissed his temple.

And then she was gone, fluttering a hand over her shoulder, graceful and frail. Kiba watched her go with an intense hunger. Then he looked over and gave Sasuke a slow, indolent smirk and tipped his beer bottle at him in a lazy salute.

Sasuke raised his own bottle in reply.

The glass _clinked_ in a very satisfying way.

They both knocked it back.

And the night went on.

/ / /

Sasuke woke in Kiba's bed with a pounding headache and a pounding on the apartment door.

(Not the first time. Not the last time. Again and again.)

"Fuck—what—hold on—"

And he stumbled out, bleary-eyed and exhausted, to unlock the door (fuck, where was Kiba) and let whoever it was in.

His really stupid friend was white-faced and frozen, and the pounding ceased as he fell into Sasuke's shoulder.

"I fucked up," he said.

"Hn?"

"I fucked up and she's dead. She's dead. She's dead."

Sasuke pulled him to the kitchen with the shitty table and made another cup of shitty coffee and _fuck_ if this was not normal. But Kiba was staring dead-eyed at the floor, white-knuckled and emotionless and it was fucking strange.

"She's dead," he said again.

The strange calm lingered. The walls were colourless. Grey light filtered in and it was cold and impersonal. Sasuke set a chipped mug in front of Kiba, but he didn't touch it. He didn't even move.

"She's dead 'cause I was too drunk to drive her home, Sasuke," Kiba said. And then he dropped his face to the tabletop, stained and burnt, and started to shake.

They sat there, at the table in the cold light, for a very long time.

Nothing was going to be the same, anymore.

Sasuke rested a hand on Kiba's shoulder. He'd never been good at comfort.

"Want a cigarette?"

Kiba didn't even move.

Sasuke went to the window, shoved it open, and lit a cigarette.

The smoke tasted like never-after.

Kiba took the cancer-stick from his fingers and took one long drag.

And then he got up, and left.

—

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_fin_.

**notes2**: welp. it begins again.  
><strong>notes3<strong>: please don't Favourite/Alert without leaving a review!


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